In the early moments of the Maui fires, when high winds toppled power poles and slammed live wires into the dry grass below, there was a reason the flames burst all at once in long, neat rows: those wires were bare metal with no insulation that could spark on contact.
Videos and images analyzed by The Associated Press confirmed those cables were between miles of power line that Hawaiian Electric Co. left exposed to the weather and often thick foliage, despite recent pressure from utility companies in other areas prone to wildfires and hurricanes to cover them. their lines or bury them.
Compounding the problem, many of the company’s 60,000 mostly wooden power poles, which its own documents described as being built to “an outdated 1960s standard,” were leaning and near the end of their useful lives. projected.
They were nowhere near meeting a 2002 national standard that key components of Hawaii’s power grid could withstand 105-mph winds.
A 2019 filing said it had been delayed in replacing the old wooden posts due to other priorities and warned of a “serious public hazard” if they “failed.”
Google Street View images of poles taken before the fire show the bare wire.
Hawaiian Electric Co. left the wires bare, despite recent pressure from utility companies in other wildfire and hurricane-prone areas to cover their lines or bury them.AP/Stephen Lam
It is “very unlikely” that a fully insulated wire would have started a fire in dry vegetation, said Michael Ahern, who retired this month as director of power systems at Worcester Polytechnic Institute in Massachusetts.
Experts who viewed videos showing downed power lines agreed that an insulated wire would not have arced or sparked, igniting a line of flames.
Hawaiian Electric said in a statement that it has “long recognized the unique threats” of climate change and has spent millions of dollars in response, but did not say whether specific power lines that collapsed in the early moments of the fire were bare.
“We have been executing a resiliency strategy to meet these challenges, and since 2018, we have spent approximately $950 million to strengthen and harden our network and approximately $110 million on vegetation management efforts,” the company said. “This work included the replacement of more than 12,500 poles and structures since 2018 and the pruning and removal of trees along approximately 2,500 linear miles each year on average.”
But a former member of the Hawaii Public Utilities Commission confirmed that many of Maui’s wooden power poles were in poor condition. Jennifer Potter lives in Lahaina and until late last year she served on the commission that regulates Hawaiian Electric.
“Even tourists driving around the island say, ‘What’s that?’ They are leaning quite a bit because the winds over time literally just pushed them away,” he said. “That’s obviously not going to withstand 60 or 70 mph winds. So the infrastructure just wasn’t strong enough for this type of windstorm… The infrastructure itself is just compromised.”
John Morgan, a Florida personal injury and trial lawyer who lives part-time on Maui, noticed the same thing. “I could look at the power poles. They were skinny, they bowed, they bowed. The power went out all the time.”
Bare, uninsulated metal cables were found that could cause a fire on contact. AP/Stephen Lam
Morgan’s firm is suing Hawaiian Electric on behalf of one person and speaking to many more about their rights. The fire occurred 500 meters from the house.
Sixty percent of utility poles in West Maui were still down on August 14, according to Shelee Kimura, CEO of Hawaiian Electric, at a news conference: 450 of the 750 poles.
Hawaiian Electric is facing a series of new lawsuits seeking to hold it accountable for the deadliest wildfire to hit the United States in more than a century.
The confirmed death toll is 115 and the county expects it to rise.
The lawyers plan to inspect some electrical equipment in a neighborhood where the fire is believed to have started next week, according to a court order, but they will do so in a warehouse.
The utility company removed the burned poles and removed the downed wires from the site.
This was an “avoidable tragedy of epic proportions,” said attorney Paul Starita, lead counsel for three of the lawsuits.
“It all comes down to money,” said Starita of California firm Singleton Schreiber. “They might say, well, it takes a long time to complete the permitting process or whatever. Well, start earlier. I mean, people’s lives are at stake. You are responsible. Spend the money, do your job.”
Hawaiian Electric is also facing criticism for not shutting off power amid high wind warnings and keeping it on even as dozens of poles began to fall. Maui County sued Hawaiian Electric on Thursday over this issue.
Hawaiian Electric is facing a series of new lawsuits seeking to hold it accountable for the deadliest wildfire to hit the United States in more than a century.AP/ae C. Hong
Michael Jacobs, a senior energy analyst at the Union of Concerned Scientists, said that with power lines causing so many fires in the United States: “We definitely have a new pattern, we just don’t have a new safety regime to go with it.” .”
Insulating an electrical wire prevents arcing and sparking and dissipates heat.
Other utility companies have been tackling the bare wire problem. Pacific Gas & Electric was found responsible for the 2018 Camp Fire in Northern California that killed 85 people.
The disaster was caused by downed power lines.
Its program to eliminate bare wire in fire zones has covered more than 1,200 miles of lines so far.
PG&E also announced in 2021 that it would bury 10,000 miles of power lines. He buried 180 miles in 2022 and is on pace to go 350 miles this year.
Another major California utility, Southern California Edison, expects to have replaced more than 7,200 miles, or about 75% of its overhead distribution lines, with covered cables in high-fire risk areas by the end of 2025.
It is also burying lines in high-risk areas.
Hawaiian Electric said in a filing last year that it had examined the wildfire plans of utilities in California.
Some don’t blame Hawaiian Electric for its relative inaction because it hasn’t faced the threat of wildfires for so long. And the utility company isn’t the only one that continues to use bare metal conductors atop power poles.
The same goes for power outages for public safety reasons.
It has only been a few years since utility companies have been willing to preemptively shut off power to people to prevent fires, and this disruptive practice is not yet widespread.
But Mark Toney called utility-caused wildfires entirely preventable.
He is the executive director of the taxpayer group The Utility Reform Network in California.
It’s pushing PG&E to isolate its lines in high-risk areas.
“We have to stop the forest fires caused by public services. We have to stop them and the fastest and cheapest way to do that is to isolate the airlines,” he stated.
The utility company removed the burned poles and removed the downed wires from the site. AP/Rick Bowmer
As for the poles, in a 2019 Hawaiian Electric regulatory filing, the company said its 60,000 poles, nearly all of them made of wood, were vulnerable because they were already old and Hawaii is in a “severe danger zone for decay from wood.” wood”. The company said it had been delayed in replacing wooden posts due to other priorities and warned of a “serious public hazard” if the posts “failed.”
The document said many of the company’s poles were built to withstand 56 mph (90 kph), when a Category 1 hurricane has winds of at least 74 mph.
In 2002, the National Electrical Safety Code was updated to require utility poles like the ones on Maui to withstand 105-mph winds.
The American power grid was designed and built for the climate of the last century, said Joshua Rhodes, a power systems research scientist at the University of Texas at Austin.
Utilities would do well to better prepare for prolonged droughts and high winds, he added.
“Everyone considers Hawaii to be a tropical paradise, but it’s dried up and burned,” he said Thursday. “It may seem expensive if you work to prevent the start of wildfires or the impact of wildfires, but it’s much cheaper than starting one and burning down so many people’s homes and causing so many deaths.”
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Source: vtt.edu.vn